The More Useful Hologram
by HarmonyAk
Summary: Rimmer finally does something self-sacrificing. And gets punished for it. Some spoilers for Queeg, Legion, and seasons 1-6 in general.
1. Chapter 1: ManEaters

**Chapter 1: Man-eaters**

Rimmer was terrified. While it could be argued that this had been his normal state of existence his whole life, or at the very least the years aboard Red Dwarf, it was certainly greatly magnified at the moment by the fact that Lister was terrified as well.

And they were both running for all they were worth.

"What-the-hell-_are-_they?" Rimmer demanded in harsh gasps.

"Gelfs, I dunno," Lister returned. He spared a brief glance over his shoulder. "Gelfs who are gaining on us."

"Gelfs from _hell_!" Rimmer exclaimed, then shut up. He needed his breath for running. And a panicked glance behind him showed that Lister was right. The monsters – Gelfs – whatever they were – were definitely closer than they had been moments before. This was unacceptable. He didn't want to die like this. Well, die _again_, technically.

It wasn't so much that they _looked _terrible. In fact, these were fairly human-shaped for Gelfs. And it wasn't so much that they smelled terrible, although they did. It was more that when Rimmer and Lister had first encountered the tribe while out looking for anything worth stealing on this moon, the Gelfs had been _eating _one of their own. In big, raw, bloody chunks. Around a camp fire. They had hastily decided the moon didn't have anything worth scrounging, and had tried to sneak away, but they'd been spotted. Now they had to get back to Starbug and out of here before they were added to the night's meal.

Or more precisely, Rimmer just had to get there faster than Lister. He figured while they stopped to eat Lister, Rimmer would have plenty of time to get to Starbug. The only problem with that plan was that Lister was faster, and was pulling ahead. At this rate, it would be _Rimmer _who was ripped apart while Listy got safely away. He felt a welling of resentment at the thought, and contemplated actually tripping Lister.

He was saved from having to make that decision when Lister tripped and fell all on his own. Rimmer didn't even pause. He heard Lister call out to him, and then begin swearing. He kept running, trying to ignore the pang that leaving his companion behind caused. It wasn't like he was fond of the git anyway.

Rimmer would have made it if he hadn't looked back. The Gelfs had indeed stopped chasing him, content to just catch one. The problem was that two of them were holding Lister up by the arms, and the third one was beating him about the midsection with both fists.

They were killing him.

Rimmer stopped. His body wanted to run away, but he couldn't take his eyes off the spectacle of a person he had known for years getting brutally beaten do death. No. This couldn't be allowed. Rimmer took one very hesitant step towards the Gelfs. Then he stopped. This was crazy. What could he do? There were three of them. He would just end up getting killed too. He took another step, stopped again. As he was looking around, trying _not _to look at what they were doing to Lister, his eyes fell on a section of iron pipe sticking out of one of the ubiquitous rubble piles. He grabbed it. It was about four feet long, and quite heavy.

Before he had time to talk himself out of it, Rimmer charged with a roar. As he ran forward, he suddenly had a feeling of great power surge though his body, and he wondered dimly if this was what they meant by an adrenaline rush giving you superhuman strength. He charged into the startled Gelfs, hitting one of them in the head so hard that half his scull caved in. The other two dropped Lister and tried to form defensive stances. Rimmer managed to club another one before they could do anything. The third, however, grabbed the club.

A very brief tug-of-war ensued, which Rimmer immediately lost. The Gelf gave a great tug, and the rod flew out of Rimmer's hands. The force threw him backwards, and it slammed the rod into the Gelf's midsection. No, Rimmer realized when the Gelf went down like a sack of wet cement, it had hit somewhat lower than the midsection. The Gelf lay on the ground cupping himself and moaning softly.

Rimmer climbed to his feet and approached Lister, keeping a wary eye on the one Gelf still living, who didn't look particularly like a threat at the moment. He bent down. Lister was doubled up coughing. He looked bad. There was blood. Rimmer wanted to back away (he hated the sight of blood), but he forced himself to extend a hand, gripping Lister's shoulder. "Listy?" he asked tentatively.

Lister paused his coughing with an effort and looked up at Rimmer. His eyes were both swollen, and he was bleeding out of the nose and mouth. "Rimmer?" he asked in a choked whisper.

"You look terrible," Rimmer told him.

"You…came back," Lister said, then choked and began coughing again.

Rimmer opened his mouth to reply when he heard a commotion from the Gelf village. There were more coming! "Lister! We have to go!" he exclaimed, urgently tugging on the other man's shoulder. "Get _up_!"

"Don't know if I can," Lister muttered, making a feeble effort to rise. Rimmer hooked an arm under Lister's armpit and pulled, hoisting the other man to his feet. Lister gritted his teeth and sucked in a sharp breath, face screwed up in pain. "Smeg," he managed.

"We have to run. NOW, Lister!" Rimmer said urgently. Lister tried, but all they managed was a quick shuffle. Rimmer kept looking behind him, expecting the Gelfs to appear around a pile of junk or a tree at any moment. He tugged at Lister, trying to make him go faster.

Lister suddenly stopped all forward momentum, though, and sagged to the ground. Caught unaware, Rimmer lost his grip, and Lister slipped to the ground, ending up on all fours, where he promptly began to vomit. Rimmer tried not to look (or smell), but he couldn't help but notice it was almost all blood. "Smeg, that is _not _good," Lister said in a breathy whisper when he had stopped.

Rimmer bent carefully down and tried to get Lister to stand again, trying to convince himself that the cold iron rod of fear in his chest was completely because they were being chased by insane mutants, and had nothing to do with the blood. "Come on," he said.

"Rimmer, I can't," Lister protested. He was making no effort at all to rise.

"So what then, I should just leave you?" Rimmer demanded, wondering as he said it why he didn't do just that. "You have to try."

"I can't," Lister said again. His face was white under the red, swollen areas. He was shaking.

"Smeg-all," Rimmer muttered. He wrapped Lister's arm around his shoulder again. Lister made a decent attempt to hold on. Rimmer then put his free arm under Lister's legs and hoisted him into his arms. He slowly straightened, groaning with effort. This was horrible! But then again, until a few seconds ago, he'd had no idea he was capable of lifting a fully-grown man in his arms. But it felt like his spine was fusing into a solid rod and his arms were going to break.

Lister looked at him blearily. "Didn't know you could…do that," he said.

"I can do anything," Rimmer said automatically, and started walking. In truth, it was one of the hardest things he had ever done. Agony flashed through his muscles with every step, and it was all he could do to keep his grip. But when Lister doubled up into another spasm of coughing and then lost consciousness, he was spurred on. One step followed another, and to his amazement, the Gelfs didn't appear and attack him. He nearly blacked out, but after an indeterminate amount of time, Starbug hove into view.

Rimmer climbed gratefully inside and even more gratefully deposited Lister on the floor behind the front row of seats. More precisely, he _dropped _Lister. He hadn't meant to, but as he bent down, his arms finally gave out, rebelling against trying to do something they'd never been asked to before. Lister moaned and woke up when he hit the floor. "How are you feeling?" Rimmer asked, realizing as he did so how completely asinine a question it was.

Lister muttered something incoherent in response. He was fading again. He needed a doctor, and fast. Rimmer was trying to ignore the fact that Red Dwarf didn't _have _a doctor. If he could get Lister back to the Dwarf, then fixing him would be someone else's problem; the situation that Rimmer was most comfortable with. He reached for the controls, and realized he had one additional problem.

He had very little idea how to fly it. He _had _actually flown Starbug before once, but that was in Lister's body, and he had been using the other man's reflexes more than anything. And, he had eventually crashed. He had also used the autopilot to get out of the launch bay. Here, he had to not only figure out how to take off from a planet, and find his way back to Red Dwarf. He went back to Lister and gently shook him. "Lister? Wake up."

Lister moaned, but he opened one eye halfway. He muttered something that may have been 'smeg off.'

"Can't do it," Rimmer told him briskly. "You have to fly Starbug."

"You're smegging joking," Lister said distinctly.

"I don't know _how_!" Rimmer protested, feeling a blush creep up his neck at the admission. "I just spent five years not being able to touch anything! When would I have learned?"

"Rimmer, I can't even sit up," Lister said. "I can't fly."

Rimmer felt panic welling up in him again. He glanced out the window, still expecting to see Gelfs arriving at any moment. "Lister, you have to."

"Help…me…up," Lister said, giving in. With a lot of effort and grunts of pain, they managed to get Lister into the pilot's seat. Rimmer had to hold him up to keep him from falling forward onto the control panel. This was going to be a _lovely _trip home. Lister started punching in an incomprehensible sequence of buttons. The ship came to life with a jerk and a whoosh. "I've programmed the Navicomp for Red Dwarf," Lister said. "All you have to do is follow the flight path."

"Flight path? What flight path?" Rimmer asked, baffled.

Lister wordlessly gestured at a screen showing a red dotted line with a little green blip. Rimmer supposed he probably had to get the blip to follow the line or some such nonsense. He turned to ask Lister, or better yet to ask him why he couldn't just fly himself. He got his answer, though, when he got a look at Lister's face. He was unconscious again. And this time, Rimmer couldn't wake him.

He was just about to go from gentle slapping to full-on shaking when he saw out of the corner of his eye that the Gelfs had finally found them. "Smeg!" he swore, letting go of Lister, who toppled out of the seat and fell in a heap on the floor. Rimmer, with nowhere to hide and nowhere to run except into space, desperately took the seat and grabbed the controls. Starbug immediately left the ground with a lurch. It took Rimmer a moment to realize it was because he had pulled on the yoke for stability as he sat. Well, that was easy enough. He knew that part.

Luckily for Rimmer, navigation though empty air was fairly easy, and he remembered the fundamentals of making it go up, down, and turn using the yoke. He didn't know how to make it do anything else, but maybe he wouldn't have to. He did have one tense moment when he accidentally bumped something and the navigation screen and the plotted course went black. He fixed it by frantically pushing buttons while chanting "smeg, smeg, smeg."

The trip back to Red Dwarf was horrible. Rimmer was so tense that he doubted he would ever be able to pry his fingers off the yoke again. He kept glancing over at Lister, who would occasionally moan or cough: the only signs that he was still alive. Then finally, mercifully, there was Red Dwarf in front of him. "Holly?" he asked, expecting her to appear on the screen.

Nothing happened. "Holly?" he demanded, louder this time. Still no response. However, the landing bay door opened. "What?" Rimmer practically squealed. "You expect _me _to land this thing? Lister? Lister! Lister, help." There was no response from his companion on the floor. There was no response from Holly. And with every passing moment, Red Dwarf loomed larger in the view port. Rimmer frantically pulled back on the speed control lever. It didn't seem to make any significant difference in their speed. He decided to switch gears and go for steering, aiming – or attempting to aim – at the open landing bay. He kept over-correcting, though, and managed to bash Starbug off both sides of the door frame before finally managing a skidding crash landing in the bay, coming to a spine-jarring stop against one of the Blue Midgets.

Now, finally, Holly appeared on the screen. "Hey now, what's this about?" she demanded.

"Where the _smeg _were _you_?" Rimmer demanded crossly, trying without success to pry his fingers off the yoke.

"What do you mean?" she asked. "You never radioed me. I didn't know _you'd _be flying, though, or I would have taken over."

"I wish you had!" Rimmer practically screamed at her.

"Where's Dave?" she asked, looking around from her limited vantage-point on the monitor.

"He's on the floor, probably dying of internal injuries," Rimmer said. "He's hurt."

"Oh dear," she said. "We'd best get him to the medical unit."

Now that Rimmer had her attention, Holly was surprisingly efficient, contacting Kryten and the Cat to bring a stretcher and getting the medical unit set up. Within minutes, they had the still-unconscious Lister hooked up to as many machines as Kryten could find.

"He looks terrible," Cat commented, wiping at a tiny spot of blood on his sleeve. "And he _bled _on me! Do you have any idea how hard it is to get blood stains out of silk?"

"How is he?" Rimmer asked, largely ignoring Cat.

"Not good, I'm afraid," Holly said as she analyzed the information the machines were feeding her. "Broken ribs, punctured lung, ruptured spleen…massive internal injuries. He's going to die without immediate surgery."

"What?" Rimmer asked blankly. He had felt an uncomfortable wrenching feeling at the word 'die.' He wondered briefly if he hadn't kept running, if Lister would be dying now. Stupid, he told himself, squelching the idea. If he hadn't made the tactical plan and taken the time to find a proper weapon, they would both be dead. So really, he was a hero.

"Who's going to perform this surgery?" Cat demanded.

Kryten held up his hands and wiggled his chunky fingers. "I fear I wasn't designed for such delicate tasks," he said.

"Would you know _how_?" Rimmer demanded incredulously.

"Well, no, sir," Kryten admitted. "But none of us knows how. And someone needs to do it, because Mister Lister will die if we don't."

"No _way_!" Cat exclaimed. "Count this pussy-cat out! Latex gloves and a mask with _this _suit?"

Rimmer backed away rapidly. "No, no, no," he said, wide-eyed.

"Relax, you lot," Holly said. "If any of you tried you'd kill him anyway. What we need to do is bring back Doctor Wallace."

"The ship's doctor? How?" Rimmer asked.

"As a hard light hologram, of course," Holly said.

"But…I'm the only hard light hologram here," Rimmer said. Then the realization hit him. "Oh no! No way! You are _not _turning me off to bring back anyone else! We've been through this before!"

"Without a doctor, Dave is going to die," Holly pointed out.

"But you'll turn me on again?" Rimmer asked dubiously, finding himself beginning to be swayed by her argument despite himself.

"You have my word," Holly said.

"But…according to your programming you're not allowed to deactivate a hologram without his or her permission," Rimmer argued. "What if Wallace doesn't agree to be shut back off?"

"Sir, if I might interrupt…" Kryten said.

"You have my word," Holly said again.

"But – "

"Sir, I really must insist," Kryten insisted.

"What!" Rimmer snapped.

"Mister Lister is dying," Kryten said. "While I realize that you don't actually _like _him, a human life is at stake. It is within your power to save him. Don't you think you should try?"

"Yeah, suck it up and do it already!" Cat snapped, casting a worried glance at Lister. Now that he knew he wasn't going to have to touch any blood or internal organs, he had stepped a bit closer and was even gently touching Lister's arm. He actually looked concerned.

Rimmer looked down at his bunkmate. Lister's eyes, even if they weren't closed, would be swollen shut by now. His nose was bent, obviously broken. His lip was split. He was white as a sheet. One arm was around his torso, cradling his broken body even in unconsciousness. Kryten had said that Rimmer didn't like him. Looking down at his bunkmate…his _friend_, Rimmer realized, swallowing hard, he knew what he had to do. "Your word, Holly?" Rimmer asked softly, not taking his eyes off Lister's face.

"You have my word, you won't be shut off permanently," Holly said.

"Or even for a long time?" Rimmer persisted.

"Sir, time is of the essence," Kryten reminded him.

Holly sighed. "You have my word you will be turned back on before the week is out, ok?"

Rimmer nodded briskly. "Ok, do it," he said before he could change his mind. Holly nodded, and Rimmer disintegrated into a million particles of light before fading to oblivion.

*******

Author's Note: For the purposes of this story, I need them to be on Red Dwarf, with Rimmer as a hard-light hologram. Since this never happened in the series (until the movie), for my purposes season 7 and beyond never happened. After season 6, the crew somehow managed to get back to Red Dwarf, and that's when this story occurs.


	2. Chapter 2: MiniRimmer

**Chapter 2: Mini-Rimmer**

Lister awoke with a dizzying lack of orientation. He had no idea where he was, what time it was, or even which end was up. His head felt like someone had stuffed it with cotton, and his face felt like someone had run over it with a bus. Several times. He tried to open his eyes, but only managed that partly. Through narrow, blurry slits, he managed to see that he was in a bed of some sort, in a room of some sort.

"Listy! How are we feeling?"

Lister raised an arm slowly and tried to rub his eyes, temporarily ignoring Rimmer. He hissed in pain and dropped his arm, though, when he touched his face. Forget being run over by a bus; he felt like someone had hit him with a meat tenderizer and then used a cheese grater for a while. "What's going on?" Lister asked. Or at least that's what he tried to ask. It came out a lot like thick, incoherent mumbling.

"That's a long story if you don't remember any of it," Rimmer told him, apparently understanding him anyway.

"I remember the smegging Gelfs," Lister said. Beating the snot out of him after Rimmer ran like a startled bunny. That wasn't surprising, though. Lister had always known Rimmer was a coward. He had been disappointed, sure, but he had _expected _Rimmer to run. The surprising part was that Rimmer had apparently come back for him. He had a definite blurry and indistinct memory of Rimmer yelling like a madman and clubbing Gelfs. He had to have hallucinated that, though.

Lister tried to open his eyes a little wider and looked around. Rimmer wasn't immediately obvious. He looked around some more and finally saw what appeared to be Rimmer. Only he was on the bedside table, and he was about fifteen centimeters tall. "What the smeg?" Lister asked. He wondered if he was actually awake. Maybe he was dreaming.

"Ah, that," Rimmer said, looking down at his tiny body. "Yes. That's a long story as well."

"Can you make a long story short?" Lister asked groggily. He was already feeling sleep trying to pull him back under.

"Well, to summarize, we had to bring back Doctor Wallace as a hard light hologram in order to perform life-saving surgery on you," Rimmer said. "So here I am."

"What?" Lister asked, confused. "Maybe you need to flesh that out a bit more."

Rimmer sighed in exasperation. "You. Needed. Surgery. So I _temporarily_ gave up my body so that we could bring Doctor Wallace back. Only now it seems that he doesn't want to _go, _so here I am in tiny, ephemeral form, while he's off gallivanting around the ship in a hard-light body, happy as you please."

"So let me get this straight, then," Lister said, blinking and trying to get his eyes to focus on Rimmer's tiny form. His head was swirling, but he thought a picture was beginning to emerge.

Rimmer nodded and sat cross-legged on the bedside table.

"You came back for me, risking your life to save mine…" He was still having trouble with that one.

"Technically, Listy, I'm dead," Rimmer pointed out.

"Alright, risking your _existence _then," Lister corrected. "And then from what I remember you carried me back to Starbug."

"Right."

"And somehow you flew Starbug back to Red Dwarf, despite the fact that you don't really know how to fly it." He stopped and looked questioningly at Rimmer.

"Kryten's still fixing it," Rimmer admitted, shifting uncomfortably. "Turns out landings are…difficult."

"And then you let Holly deactivate you so they could bring back the ship's doctor, in order to, again, save my life," Lister continued.

"Right so far," Rimmer agreed, looking somewhat smug.

"And as your reward for all this, you've lost your body," Lister finished.

Rimmer sagged. "Yes, that's more or less it."

"That's not _right,_ man!" Lister exclaimed. "You actually did something brave, and heroic, and self-sacrificin' –"

"And I got smeg-all for it, yes." Rimmer agreed. "And you wonder why I tend to be self-serving and cowardly, Listy?"

"But…" Lister tried to think, but it was increasingly difficult. He was still terribly weak, and his brain still felt fuzzy from the medication.

"He's opened a whole moral can of worms, he has," Holly said, popping up on a nearby monitor.

"Whatcha mean, Hol?" Lister asked.

"Well, it's the laws and ethics of holograms, of course," she said. "Once you bring one back, unless someone dies that's more critical to the mission – which is _clearly _not the case here – " she looked at Rimmer.

"Hey," he protested, looking wounded.

"It's illegal to terminate him," she finished. "And so I'm programmed not to be able to do it. So unless Doctor Wallace volunteers to be turned off, we can't very well do it."

"But when there were two Rimmers you deactivated one of them," Lister pointed out, still feeling lost.

"But they agreed to that," Holly said.

Rimmer nodded. He got up and began to pace. "The same rules that kept you from turning _me _off and bringing back someone more…more…more…"

"Useful?" Holly suggested. Lister had thought the same thing, but under the circumstances it seemed inappropriate to say it.

"Right," Rimmer agreed, clearly not paying attention to the word so much as the agreement. "The same rules don't allow Holly to deactivate Wallace and give me my body back. _My _body," he said again.

"Rimmer, we'll…we'll think of something," Lister said, knowing it sounded lame. He was too foggy to think straight. "I think I need to rest a bit, guys," he confessed. "Still got a bit of recoverin' to do."

"I'll just be here, your little night-light," Rimmer said bitterly.

"Thanks, Rimmer," Lister said, although he was already half-asleep and barely heard him.

When Lister awakened again hours later, he felt much more clear-headed. He looked over to see Rimmer apparently sleeping, curled up on the bedside table. He felt a stab of something that seemed suspiciously like pity. Like sympathy. "Hey, Rimmer," he said.

Rimmer jerked awake and sat up. "What? Where am I?" he asked blearily. He focused a glare at Lister. "I see you're awake. How are _you _feeling? Because _I'm _feeling like I'm fifteen centimeters high. And like someone woke me up."

"I'm feelin' better," Lister said. "You been here the whole night?"

"You don't _get _it, do you?" Rimmer demanded in frustration. "I don't have a light bee! I'm being projected from a _stationary _projector! I _cannot _move more than a few centimeters unless someone moves the projector!"

"Oh," Lister said. Lister was pretty sure they hadn't told him that before, actually. But to be fair, he couldn't remember everything clearly. For all he knew they had explained it ten times. Well, they'd just have to explain it again. "What exactly _are _you?" he asked, weakly poking a finger in Rimmer's general direction. Mini-Rimmer was apparently being projected from a little black device about the size of a camcorder. He was projected a few centimeters in front of it. He looked somehow less solid than he had even as a soft light hologram. Lister could vaguely see the shape of the table through him.

Rimmer backed away from the finger and sighed. "I'm still me. I'm being projected from some sort of old holographic mail-greeting system thing."

"What, you mean like your girlfriend makes a pornographic video of herself and sends it and it arrives as a three-dimensional hologram?" Lister asked. "I think I've seen those."

"If it's pornographic, I'm sure you have," Rimmer said. "Yes, like that. Kryten found it and was able to modify it to store me as an autonomous entity. Well, not autonomous in any sense of being able to _go _anywhere," he amended. For emphasis he leaned over and stuck his arm out. The end of it disappeared as it apparently got out of range of the broadcasting beam.

"Oh," Lister said. "That must be frustrating."

"You have _no _idea," Rimmer said with feeling, pulling his arm back to visibility.

"No luck convincin' Wallace, huh?" Lister asked, remembering what Rimmer had said before about trying to get his body back.

"Well," Rimmer said uncomfortably, "we couldn't switch back yet anyway. You still need a doctor."

"I'm fine," Lister said automatically.

Rimmer jumped to his feet. "Lister, you nearly _died_! You have no idea how close to death you were! You just had major surgery. So no, you're _not _fine, and you're going to stay in bed and do what the doctor tells you until further notice! You got that?"

"You were really worried about me, weren't you?" Lister asked, shocked into complete tactlessness. He'd never really gotten the impression Rimmer cared one way or the other about him.

Rimmer stopped his nervous pacing. The look on his face was one of a kid who had gotten caught. He stared a minute, then his shoulders slumped. "Yes, ok? I was worried."

"And you came back for me," Lister said.

"I was only doing it because Kryten, Holly, and the Cat would have made my life hell if I hadn't," Rimmer snapped, averting his eyes.

"I didn't think you would, you know," Lister couldn't help but add. He squeezed his eyes shut. "Sorry."

Rimmer sat down with a sigh. "No, I get it. I don't exactly have the best track record when it comes to doing anything heroic, do I? Why _wouldn't _you have assumed I'd leave you behind? Hell, I _did _leave you behind, although I would point out that was of course because I had to go find a suitable weapon so that I could sweep heroically in and save your sorry self."

"Of course," Lister said, amused. He wondered how much of that line Rimmer actually believed himself. "Point is, you did save me," he admitted. "So thanks."

Before Rimmer could respond, Hurricane Cat arrived in a swirl of purple sequins. "AAAAAAAOOOOOWWWWWWW!" He exclaimed. "Hey, Monkey. Hey, Alphabet Head." He poked his finger through Rimmer.

"Hey!" Rimmer exclaimed, taking a step back. "I really wish you'd _quit _that!"

"Cat, stop it," Lister said tiredly.

"Sorry, it's something biological," Cat said, batting at Rimmer, who stepped away hastily. "I just get the feeling that I should be chasing him."

"Oh, boy," Lister said.

Cat batted at Rimmer again. He stepped back and half of him disappeared.

"Uh, Rimmer?" Lister said. And to Cat, "Stop it!"

Rimmer looked at his missing half and hastily stepped back into the beam of the projector, where he rematerialized. "This has _got _to stop, Lister!" he complained.

"Cat, maybe you can come back later," Lister suggested.

"What? You don't want me to come for a visit?" Cat asked. It was impossible to tell if he was offended or not.

"Of course," Lister said hastily. "It's just…stop messing with Rimmer, ok? It's rude to stick your fingers into a hologram."

"Really," Rimmer seconded.

"But he's so much like a mouse!" Cat protested, reaching for Rimmer again.

"I am _not_!" Rimmer protested.

"Cat," Lister said. He was feeling exhausted again, although even when he was healthy Cat often had the effect on him.

"Ok, fine," Cat said, turning away from Rimmer. "How you doing, anyway?"

"I'm ok," Lister said. In truth, he did feel ok. He could tell he was medicated, but he wasn't in any real pain, and he didn't feel as foggy as before. He was too tired for a long visit, though.

Cat, clearly not sensing this, sat down for the long haul. "You want to watch a movie or something?"

"I don't really feel like it," Lister admitted.

"Cards?" Cat asked.

"Not right now," Lister said wearily.

"Parcheesi?" Cat persisted. "Monopoly? Chess?"

"_You _play chess?" Rimmer asked with heavy skepticism.

"I play with the pieces," Cat said easily.

"Cat, are you bored?" Lister asked, catching on.

"Well…yeah," Cat said. "I mean, you might be disgusting, lazy, and smelly, but you're always entertaining!"

"Gee, thanks," Lister said.

"You think _you're _bored," Rimmer muttered to Cat.

"Yeah, Rimmer, what do _you _do now, anyway?" Lister asked.

"Oh, I have a very busy social calendar," Rimmer said. "First, I've counted all the lights on the ceiling. Then, I counted all the cigarette burn marks on the bedside table. Then I slept for a while. Let's see, what else? I _know _there was something else! Oh yes! This afternoon, I was planning on staring at the far wall! And for variety, I might just stare at the _near _wall too!"

"Can't Holly give you hologram books to read or something?" Lister asked with sympathy.

"You think I didn't ask?" Rimmer demanded. "Apparently not. This projector's not nearly as versatile as the light bee. It can only generate me. I can't even change clothing." He looked down at his uniform. "I can't change my appearance at all."

"I can see through you, too," Lister told him.

Rimmer held up a hand and looked at it, turning it this way and that. "Really? I can't. I must be more intangible to you than to myself."

"What about watchin' TV or something?" Lister asked.

"Tried that too," Rimmer said. "Something funny there, I can't focus on the screen. I think I'm a similar frequency or something, because whenever I try to watch, the picture flickers. Gives me a headache. It's terrible."

"Well, uh…" Lister had run out of ideas.

"Which is why you need to get well, so that Wallace can give me my body back," Rimmer said.

"Wallace will do no such thing," said a new voice. Doctor Wallace entered the room. "I have as much right to be ship's hologram as you. More, actually, as I'm exponentially more useful."

"Let's not get personal," Rimmer said.

"Look," Lister said. "Thanks for saving my life and all, doctor, but Rimmer was here first, man." He was surprised to be defending Rimmer. And from the startled look Rimmer gave him, he was pretty surprised as well.

"And I'm here now. Legally, I have rights. Morally and ethically, I have rights. I'm staying. He can go or stay as he chooses. But not as a hard light hologram on this ship."

"That's an unreasonable position," Rimmer pouted.

"Unreasonable?" Wallace snorted. "You want to _kill _me! How am I being unreasonable?"

"Kill you?" Rimmer demanded. "You're not alive! You're already dead! You're just a very sophisticated computer program and millions of points of light. And if we switched you off, you'd never know. You'd never feel a thing!"

Wallace gave him a cold look. "And the exact same thing can be said of you. In fact…" He reached for the switch on top of the projection unit.

"Hey, enough!" Lister exclaimed, putting out a hand to stop him. "You're not turning him off either! Nobody's killing anybody!"

"What possible advantage is he to the mission in his current form?" Wallace asked. "In any form?"

Lister looked at Rimmer, who gave him a somewhat desperate look back. "He's…he's…" Lister's mind was blank. Even as a hard light hologram, Rimmer didn't actually contribute to the mission in any positive way. Well, except for the reason Holly had originally chosen him to bring back. "He keeps me sane," he said. "Or so Holly tells me."

"Yeah," Holly said, popping up on a nearby screen.

"Ah," Wallace said. "Well then. Strange, but considering Holly's senile, I'm sure it makes perfect sense. But however _that _works, I'm sure he's just as capable of it in his current form."

"Hey!" Holly interjected.

Rimmer opened his mouth to protest, but Lister waved him to silence. He didn't have the strength to go toe-to-toe with the doctor right now, and he was afraid if Rimmer insulted him anymore, he really _would _switch the projector off. And Lister didn't know whether that would be fatal. In fact, at the moment he felt pretty clueless about a lot of things.

Wallace began to examine Lister, and he suffered himself to be poked and prodded for a few minutes, after which the doctor mercifully left. "Keeps you sane?" Rimmer burst out as soon as the door shut. "Keeps you sane? _That's _the best you can come up with?"

"It's more charitable than I would have said," Cat said cheerfully.

"Of all the ungrateful, disrespectful…I'll have you know I contribute a _great deal _to the mission!"

"Oh yeah? Like what?" Lister asked.

"Like…like…" Rimmer's face reddened in frustration. "So many ways I see no reason to list them out for you, you git!"

"Whatever," Lister said. "You know what I don't understand, though?"

"Lister, I could write a book about the things you don't understand," Rimmer said.

"Smeghead. I don't understand why you can't be brought back as a hologram? I know we have only one hard light bee, but we've got several spare soft light ones."

"Lister, Holly can only support one hologram, remember?" Rimmer asked, annoyed.

"Nuh-uh!" Lister disagreed. "Remember when there were two of _you?_"

"God, must I?" Rimmer muttered.

"So if Holly turns off all essential systems, she should be able to power you as a hologram too," Lister finished triumphantly.

"Hey, yes!" Rimmer exclaimed. "Why didn't I think of that?"

"Problem with that, guys," Holly said, looking uncomfortable.

"What problem?" Rimmer asked, annoyed.

"I would have suggested it if it was possible," she said. "But remember that big meteorite that hit the Hologram Simulation Suite a few years ago?"

"When I started acting like the other crew members?" Rimmer said. "Don't remind me."

"Yeah, and you pretended to be Queeg" Lister said, remembering.

"Well, we never did finish fixing the damage," Holly explained. "So right now it works just fine to support one hologram, but there's no way to modify it for two."

"Hol, why didn't you ever remind us to fix that?" Lister asked in mild exasperation.

"Well, could you have?" Holly asked. "I mean, you're pretty good with mechanical things, but a hologram simulation projector's very sophisticated. Besides, it doesn't affect me in any real way."

"Well, it affects _me_!" Rimmer snapped.

"How was I to know that we'd ever need two holograms?" Holly asked crossly. "Really."

Lister sighed and sank back against the pillows. This was all too complicated for him in his current state. He could feel his brain beginning to shut off again, and he really needed everyone to leave. Well, particularly Cat. It would be nice of Rimmer would go away as well, but he realized that was impossible right now. Besides, Rimmer seemed to be pretty good about letting him rest, surprisingly. "Look, you guys…I really do need to rest. If, as Rimmer says, I'm going to get well any time soon."

"Fine," Cat said. "I know when I'm not wanted. But don't come crying to me about how I never visit you then." He gave Lister and Rimmer a disdainful look and left the room.

"I hope I didn't hurt his feelings," Lister said, looking after him.

"Keeps you sane," Rimmer muttered again. "Who's supposed to keep _me_ sane?"

Lister just smiled in response, and almost immediately fell asleep.


	3. Chapter 3: When in Rome

**Chapter 3: When in Rome**

Life fell into a routine for the next several days. Lister slept a lot. When he was awake, Cat and Kryten would often visit. Wallace checked on him every several hours, and changed the dressing on his abdomen every day. Rimmer criticized everyone and everything and talked at length about how bored he was. Lister felt sorry for him, but not sorry enough to sit through hours of Risk campaign stories. _Nobody _had that much sympathy. Sometimes, to give them both a break from each other, Kryten would take Rimmer's projector and move it to another room. But each time, Rimmer would eventually be brought back. Lister couldn't quite figure out why, unless it was because he was just so used to bunking with him that he couldn't sleep anywhere else. Or maybe it was just less boring to hang out with a sleeping Lister than it was to be alone. Either way, he found he took pleasure in the company, particularly when Rimmer was sleeping.

After several days, he was allowed up to take very short walks around the room and down the hall to try to keep his muscle tone. At first it was agony; he was so weak he had to hold onto Wallace. But soon he was able to hobble to the end of the corridor and back whenever he wanted to. He was healing.

On day seven, he had just completed a walk to the next room and back, and was feeling pretty good. Wallace came in and checked him out. "You're doing much better," he said.

"Fit as a fiddle, right?" Lister asked.

"Well, I wouldn't go that far," Wallace said. "But in a couple of days we can take the stitches out, and then you can return to your quarters."

"Excellent!" Lister said happily.

Wallace gave him a half-smile and left.

Lister had something else he wanted to say, now that he was healing and at least partly mobile. "Wallace, can I talk to you?" he called, struggling to his feet and hobbling out into the hall after the doctor.

"Yes?" Wallace asked polite formality, stopping.

"Look, man, don't think I'm not grateful for what you did," Lister began awkwardly. "But now that I'm getting better and all…"

"Yes?" Wallace asked, polite smile still pasted into his face.

"Well, it's just…I mean, thanks for everything…but…" Lister was finding this very hard. He wanted Rimmer to get his body back. But he could think of absolutely no reason at all to offer. After all, what was Rimmer but a constant source of annoyance? Was the fact that he had been a part of the team for five years really enough to justify shutting off the doctor? Why did Lister even care?

Wallace saw where he was trying to go. The polite smile dropped off and his eyes blazed. "I don't _believe _you! You honestly want me to volunteer to be shut off – in essence to be _killed _– just so that _Rimmer _can be brought back?"

"Well…something like that," Lister admitted. "Look it's not that I don't – "

"There's just no logical reason for it," Wallace snapped. "One, I outrank him. It really should be the most vital person to the mission who's brought back, which would be Hollister, but you didn't choose to do that – "

"Can you blame me?" Lister asked, horrified by the very idea.

"Two," Wallace continued, holding up a second finger, "I'm a doctor, and for that reason and an infinite number of other reasons, I'm more useful to you than he is. Three, I'm a nicer, more considerate person than he is. Give me _one _good reason why he should be given back the hard light bee!"

"_You're _nice and considerate," Lister exclaimed before he could stop himself. From what he had seen of the doctor, he was a pompous, self-righteous arse. Sort of like Rimmer, only with skills and self-confidence.

"Yes," Wallace said coldly, completely failing to prove his point. "So again, why should you want Rimmer back?"

"He's miserable," Lister said. "He can't go anywhere. He can't do anything. It isn't fair!"

"Why do you care?" Wallace asked. "From what I gather, you two don't even like each other."

"Because he's my mate," Lister said automatically. "I know that Rimmer and I don't always see eye to eye, but he's…my mate," he finished lamely. It was true, although it felt weird to admit it. Wallace didn't appear to be buying it, though. "And more to the point, he saved my life. And he willingly stepped aside to allow you to come back so he could save my life again." Maybe that would work.

"_I _saved your life," Wallace amended angrily. "And what am I, a medbot? I'm a convenience that can be turned on when you need me, and then just _switched off_ if you don't? _I_ don't have a right to live?"

"Well…" Lister said. It was a valid point, but one that he hated to concede. "What about some sort of…time share then? You two switch off with the bee and the projector? That way nobody is ever _really _shut off, and nobody is stuck as a projection forever."

"If he doesn't like being a projection, if he's so bored and you're so concerned about your _mate, _why don't you just shut him off?" Wallace asked nastily. "After all, he's not _really _alive, right? He won't feel a thing!" With that he turned on his heel and stormed away.

Lister sagged and turned back into his room. He sat heavily on the bed, only then noticing that Rimmer was standing rigidly staring at him. "What?" Lister asked. He sagged. "Oh, you heard that, huh?"

Rimmer nodded wordlessly.

"All of it?" Lister asked, feeling color rise in his face. It wasn't exactly that he had ever pretended he _wasn't _friends with Rimmer, but to have been caught admitting it was really embarrassing.

Rimmer nodded again.

"Oh…_SMEG_!" Lister swore.

Rimmer shook himself and then sat down. "I didn't know you cared, Listy," he said, mouth twitching in a half-smile. Then his face hardened. "Wait. Wait a minute. We've played this before. You were just _saying _that, weren't you? You were just trying to make a point. Or…or you were just trying to mess with me somehow, weren't you? This is all some sort of a…a cruel joke on old Rimsy, isn't it?"

Lister held up his hands in protest. The temptation to agree with that was strong. In general, he didn't like showing his feelings. That was why when they had escaped from the terraforming planet, he had backpedaled and told Rimmer he'd been kidding about caring about him. It was embarrassing to admit something like that, particularly since Rimmer was generally such a smeghead. Also, it was really fun to mess with him. But Rimmer _had _saved his life, and he didn't deserve that again right now. "No," he said quietly. "I meant it."

"You…weren't just saying that?" Rimmer asked hesitantly. He looked like a kicked puppy.

"No!" Lister said. "Why is it so hard to believe that someone cares about you, Rimmer?"

"But…people _don't _care about me, that's the point," Rimmer said. "They never have. I don't _have _friends, Lister. I never have, never will. Good things just don't happen to me!" He looked down, blinking.

Right at the moment, with Rimmer stuck as a transparent fifteen-centimeter nightstand hologram, that point was really hard to argue. Lister sighed. "I'm sure _something _nice has happened to you," he tried.

"Maybe, but if so I don't actually remember it," Rimmer said bitterly.

Lister couldn't either, so he tried to change the subject. Sort of. "You can't pretend you don't care about me either," he said.

"Of course I can," Rimmer said. Then he made a face when he realized what he'd said. "I mean, what makes you think I care about you? You're obnoxious, you're messy, and you spend every waking moment trying to find new ways to annoy me."

"All true," Lister admitted cheerfully. "But you did come back for me," he said, turning serious again.

Rimmer's shoulders slumped. He looked up at Lister. "True, I did. Ok, fine. You might be messy, and disgusting, and annoying…"

"Flatterer," Lister said, grinning.

"But…I guess I'd prefer if you didn't die," Rimmer finished. "You have…your moments, I guess."

"Thanks," Lister said dryly.

"And if you tell anyone I said that, I'll kill you," Rimmer finished.

"Ditto," Lister told him. They sat there smiling stupidly at each other for a moment, then Lister clapped his hands briskly. "Ok, then! Now we just have to figure out what to do about Wallace."

Rimmer blinked himself back to that particular problem. "I don't want to share time with him," he said. "I want to be back all the time."

"Well, he's not too keen on that idea either," Lister said. "But I can't think of anything else. I hate to admit it, particularly since he's as much of a smeghead as you are, but he's got a right to exist now that we activated him."

"I _cannot _stay this way!" Rimmer exclaimed. "It's horrible! You have no idea."

It was true, Lister didn't have any idea. He also didn't have any ideas. "We'll think of something," he told Rimmer.

"Right," Rimmer said without confidence, folding his arms over his chest.

"Ok, Holly will think of something, then," Lister corrected.

"Holly lied to me, you know," Rimmer said. "She told me I'd be turned back on within a week."

"And you have been, haven't you?" Holly asked, popping up on the closest screen.

"You _can't _be serious!" Rimmer snapped. "_This _is what you meant?!"

"I didn't know what I meant," Holly said. "In fact, I often don't know what I mean."

"Join the club," Rimmer muttered.

"But the point is, you're still here," Holly said. "And it's not so bad. I mean, I can't touch anything either, and I'm fine."

"But you've _never _been anything else," Rimmer protested. "You don't know what it's _like _to touch, to feel, to eat, to have sex…"

"You don't know that last one either," Lister pointed out with a grin, to which Rimmer gave him a scathing glare.

"_Any_way," Rimmer said, "in the spirit of what you promised, if not the actual letter, you need to figure out a way to get my body back."

"I don't see how," Holly said.

"Hol – " Lister said.

"Ok, ok, I'll see what I can do," Holly said, and disappeared.

"My fate rests in her hands. I'm doomed," Rimmer said glumly. Lister didn't say anything, but privately it was hard not to agree. He laid disconsolately back on his bed. There had to be something he could do to help.

The next morning he thought of something. He woke up before Rimmer, which was becoming more and more common these days, as Rimmer was apparently using sleep as his chief form of entertainment. Lister tiptoed out of the room and headed off towards his quarters. He had misjudged how weak he still was, though, and by the time he got there, he was shaking with exhaustion. He sank down on the bunk – the lower bunk, Rimmer's – to rest a moment.

As he sat there, he thought about how nice it was to be back in his own quarters for a change. He knew that he was in the medical unit for his own good, but he hated every minute of it. For one thing, it was too public. He was currently allowed to wear real clothes, but generally – and for most of the last week – he had been forced to wear one of those gowns where your bum hung out. It was embarrassing. And also, he hated to show weakness. And you couldn't get much more weak than he was at the moment, he thought bitterly. He didn't know if he even had the strength to get back to his hospital bed. Maybe Wallace wouldn't notice if he just stayed here.

He awoke with a start. He hadn't even realized he'd fallen asleep, but he opened his eyes to see Cat a foot in front of him. He jumped back in surprise, sucking in air when the move caused fire to flash through his abdomen. "Cat!" he complained loudly.

Cat backed off a bit. "Sorry, monkey. Were you sleeping?"

"Yeah," Lister said, rubbing his eyes. "What's up, Cat?"

Cat shrugged. "I saw you go in here, and I thought I'd come for a visit."

"Oh," Lister said. Cat being, basically, a cat, it was often hard to tell if he cared or not. Lister chose to believe he did, and that this visit was a show of concern and compassion. Or maybe he just wanted to be fed. "What've you been up to?" he asked. "I haven't seen much of you the last few days."

"I don't like that Doctor Goalpost Head," Cat said.

"You've been avoiding the doctor?" Lister asked, surprised. In truth he didn't much care for Wallace either, but Cat didn't like Rimmer either, and he didn't go out of his way to avoid _him._

"Yeah, I don't trust him," Cat said. "He doesn't…_smell _right."

Lister had learned from their time in Starbug to trust Cat's nose. "How so?" he asked seriously.

"I don't know," Cat said, shrugging in frustration. "But he doesn't."

"I'll admit he's a bit of a git," Lister said. "But that might be because we keep talking about deactivating him. O'course, he was a bit of a git when he was alive too."

"You knew him?" Cat asked.

"Cat, there weren't that many people on the ship. We pretty much all knew each other. Besides, he was the doctor. I had to go to him for medical stuff."

"What kind of medical stuff did you need done?" Cat asked curiously.

Lister tried to think back. Three million years ago was really starting to feel…well, like it happened three million years ago. "Well, there was the time that Rimmer tied me hair to the bunk and then pulled the fire alarm," he said. "I needed stitches for that."

Cat chuckled and immediately sobered when Lister glared at him.

"And there was the time that I got me hand stuck in the chicken soup vending machine when Rimmer turned the knob the wrong way and turned it on when I was working on it."

"You ever been to a doctor when it _wasn't_ his fault?" Cat asked.

Lister blinked. "Of course I have," he said. Although he realized as he said it that pretty much every time he went to the doctor during his tour on Red Dwarf was a result of the prank war that he had with Rimmer. But to be fair, Rimmer'd had to go just as much because of things Lister did to _him._ It was all in good fun. Sort of. "My point is…" he trailed off. If he had one, he'd forgotten it.

Cat waited for him to continue, and then slowly grinned. "You've forgotten your point, haven't you?"

"Sod off," Lister told him.

"So what are you doing in here, anyway?" Cat asked, gesturing around the room. "You miss so much you just had to come back?"

"Well, I _do_," Lister said, "but that's not it. I'm looking for something."

"Oh? What?" Cat asked.

"Well," Lister said, wondering even as he spoke whether Cat would just laugh at him. "I was thinking I could rig up some sort of harness for Rimmer's projector. You know, so that one of us could carry him around and keep him from bein' so bored like."

He was right, Cat laughed. When he stopped he said, "I hope you're not expecting _me _to wear Alphabet Head around like a really ugly fashion accessory. Because I can tell you right now, he would _not _go with this jacket!"

Lister shook his head. "Wasn't even going to ask," he said.

"Good. Because I won't do it. Why would _you _want to?"

Lister fidgeted, embarrassed by being caught trying to do something nice. "Well…I feel partly responsible, I guess. And he's so bored. He can't watch TV, he can't read books. He can't _go _anywhere."

"You realize that he'll spend all his time telling _you _where to go."

"Maybe I can hook him up to a scutter then," Lister said.

"You mean like in a little cart?" Cat asked.

"Or a _chariot_!" Lister exclaimed, smacking his fist into his palm. "Cat, you're a genius! He'll _love _it!"

"I am?" Cat asked. "He will?"

"Yeah! You know how much Rimmer loves the idea of being a reincarnation of all the soldiers in history or whatever," Lister exclaimed. "I imagine there were some Romans in there. Trust me, he'll love it." He tried to jump up to find the necessary parts, but his legs rebelled. He ended up sliding halfway to the floor.

"Hey, are you ok?" Cat asked, bending over him, concern clearly on his face.

Lister tried to grin. "Yeah, I just tried to get up too fast."

"Maybe you should go back to the medical unit," Cat said, helping Lister back onto the bunk.

"Maybe…" Lister grudgingly agreed, hating his own weak body. "But I wanted to – "

"Hello, Mister Lister sir," Kryten interrupted, barging cheerfully into the room. "Hello, Mister Cat."

"Hiya, Krytes," Lister said, hastily shaking off Cat's supporting hand. "What's up?"

"The top levels of the ship, sir," Kryten said. "Or perhaps you meant – "

"I _meant _it as a figure of speech!" Lister exclaimed, rolling his eyes.

"Ah, of course!" Kryten said. "How very 'unhip' of me. I have been sent here to relay a message to you."

"Message? From who?" Lister asked.

"Why, Doctor Wallace."

"What's the message?" Lister asked when it became apparent that Kryten was going to make him ask.

"He wanted me to tell you – and I'm quoting here – to 'get your slobby, disobedient ass back to bed before you hurt yourself and end up back in surgery.'"

"I told you I didn't trust him," Cat muttered.

"Why'd he send you, though?" Lister asked. "Holly could have relayed that."

"I suspect, sir, given that he knew you were here, that he believed you might need assistance in returning to the medical unit," Kryten said.

Great. So everyone knew how weak and pathetic he was. On the other hand, here was Kryten to help him with his new project. "Nah," he said, waving dismissively and shooting a warning glance at Cat. "But there _is _something else you can help me with." He briefly outlined his idea.

"You're right, sir, he will absolutely love it!" Kryten said happily. "And I believe I know just the place to get the materials to make it. You do realize, though, that the scutters are going to hate you for this."

Lister grinned. "Yeah. But it can't be any worse than the time that Rimmer asked them to transcribe his entire Risk campaign book into the computer so he could make it audio and set it to music."

"True," Kryten said. "Are you certain that you can make it back to the medical unit by yourself?"

"Kryten, I'm absolutely fine!" Lister snapped. "Go on then."

Kryten inclined his head. "Of course." With that he left.

Lister made no move to get up. Cat hovered for a moment, then sighed in exasperation. "I guess it's up to _me _to get you back to bed, then, isn't it?"

"Cat, I'm _fine_!" Lister said through gritted teeth. "I'm healin' just fine. I'm just a little tired is all." This was all true, but the fact remained that he wasn't sure he had the stamina to get back. But he would be damned if he was going to ask Cat to help him. He glared until Cat got up and headed to the door.

"I'm going to take a nap until you're feeling more agreeable," he shot over his shoulder.

Lister watched him go. He should probably apologize, but he probably wouldn't. Cat would be fine. After a few minutes, he struggled to his feet, slower this time. Oh yeah. This was going to totally suck. He shuffled out the door and down the hall, using the bulkhead to support himself. Maybe he _was _overextending himself.

Stopping for frequent rests, he was able to get back by himself. He lowered himself into bed gratefully, trying to ignore Rimmer, who had been pacing until he came in, and then stood with arms folded across his chest. "And where have _you _been?" Rimmer exploded when it became clear that Lister wasn't planning on talking.

Lister sank back into his pillow with a groan. "I was just getting some exercise," he said. "So maybe I overdid it a bit, but why does everyone keep making a federal case of it?"

"Primarily because Wallace has been in here chewing _me _out for letting you leave!" Rimmer snapped. "_Me_. As if I have _any _control over what you do! I wasn't even awake when you left, for smeg's sake!"

"Well, I'm back now, so you can tell him to stop worryin'," Lister said, closing his eyes. "And now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to take a nap."

"Oh sure, I'll just be here, part of the room décor," Rimmer snapped.

Lister smirked, thinking about the chariot.

Rimmer was, in fact, just as delighted by the chariot as Lister had hoped he would be. And as soon as it came clanking in, towed behind a very cranky-looking scutter, he recognized it for exactly what it was. He looked between a proud Kryten and a beaming Lister. "_You _planned this, didn't you?" he asked. "That's where you went this morning."

"Yeah," Lister said happily. "Although believe it or not, a lot of the idea was Cat's."

"You're right, I don't believe it," Rimmer said. He walked as close to the edge of the table as his projector would allow. "Is that a _Roman chariot_?"

"Yeah," Lister said. "And Kryten, you did a beautiful job with it." It was true. It looked just like a tiny chariot. Kryten had even put a little harness on the scutter. The only modifications were the length, too allow room for the projector, and the fact that instead of sitting on the floor and hovered a few centimeters above it.

Rimmer grinned. "This is great! Kryten, put me in it!"

Kryten gently lifted the projector into the chariot, pointed so that Rimmer could stand in front. He laughed with delight, a sound that Lister hadn't even known he was capable of. "Forward, Incitatus!"

The scutter gave him a dirty look, but started forward.

"Incit-what?" Lister asked, watching as Rimmer left the room.

"I believe that was the name of the Emperor Caligula's horse," Kryten said. "As I said, sir, the scutters are going to hate you." Lister grinned. It was totally worth it. He laid back down to enjoy both the peace and quiet and a glowing sense of accomplishment. Kryten took the hint and left.

He didn't have long to enjoy the solitude, though. Emperor Rimmer and his trusty steed came clippity-clopping back in within an hour.

Lister, who hadn't been sleeping so much as drifting, rolled carefully into his side and stuck his head down off the bed. "How's life in Rome, Rimmer?"

Rimmer smiled up at him. "Fantastic, meladdo! Look, Lister…" He trailed off, seeming unsure.

"It's ok, Rimmer, you don't have to thank me," Lister said.

"Good, because I wasn't going to," Rimmer said briskly. "As much fun as this is, the fact remains that I'm still only fifteen centimeters high and can't touch anything. So you need to hurry up and get well so that we can deactivate Wallace and get me my body back."

Lister stiffened. Of all the ungrateful… Such a smeghead! He opened his mouth to snap something, but couldn't think of a good retort.

Luckily, he didn't have to. Rimmer's face softened again. "Look, Lister…thanks for this. It's a damn sight better than being stuck in one place all the time. It was a nice thing to do." With that he spurred his 'steed' out of the room again, leaving Lister staring after him gaping like a goldfish. There was just no figuring out some people. Especially Rimmer. So why even try?


	4. Chapter 4: Queeg all over again

**Chapter 4: Queeg all over again**

It was nearly a week later when Lister was finally allowed to return to his quarters. He wondered if this was somehow partly punishment for him sneaking off before. He wanted to doubt Wallace would be cruel like that, but two things made it more plausible. First, there was Cat's intuition, his 'nose.' Second, there was the fact that Wallace was a total git. The more Lister was around him, the worse he seemed. It was one thing to have someone arrogant and bossy, who was always telling him what to do but was 1) only a second technician, and a dead one at that, and 2) completely incompetent in his own right. It was quite another to be constantly reminded by a smart, skilled officer that he was lazy, didn't take care of himself, and had the hygiene of a diseased hyena.

Lister would take Rimmer over Wallace any day. But he would eat live tarantulas (again) before he ever admitted it.

Rimmer, for his part, was still taking full advantage of the chariot, although he still slept on the night stand while Lister was in the medical unit and then followed him back to their quarters when Lister was allowed to leave. He decided it _must _be because of habit. Or maybe companionship. They didn't get along very often (or ever), but even smeggy company was better than no company.

Two days after he moved back to his own bunk, Lister was out getting some exercise, trying to regain his strength, when Holly suddenly popped up on a nearby monitor. "Emergency, emergency," she intoned. "Arnold needs you, Dave!"

Lister stopped walking. "What's happened?" he asked worriedly. Knowing Holly it could be anything from something as trivial as Rimmer wanting to have him pick up something to something as serious as Red Dwarf being on a collision course with a planet. But she looked serious. He started hurrying – almost running – back towards their quarters. "What is it, Hol?"

"The battery on the projector unit's dying!" Holly explained. "You need to get him plugged in to recharge it. I thought you did that days ago."

"I forgot," Lister admitted. He had a vague memory of Kryten saying something about charging the battery, but he had been distracted at the time, more wrapped up in his own healing. "Will it actually kill him if his battery dies?"

"Unfortunately, yes," Holly said. "You see, in order for him to work through the projector, I had to actually download him completely onto it. So while I suppose we could restore him from his original crew backup, it would be the Rimmer of five years ago, not the Rimmer that's grown out of those five years of experiences."

"There's a difference?" Lister asked, although he knew it was true. He opened the door to his quarters. Rimmer was fading in and out with a panicky look on his face.

"Where's the power cable?" Lister demanded, opening drawers at random and pulling out any cord he could find. He held up a handful of them and selected the one that looked the most like the plug fit. Rimmer was fading fast. Lister started to desperately plug it in. He heard Holly say something, but he was too intent on Rimmer's fading image to hear. He plugged the cord into the unit, and then into the nearest outlet. There was a flash of light, sparks, and a fizzle of electricity.

Rimmer screamed and disappeared.

"Oh SMEG!" Lister yelled.

"I _said _not to use that one!" Holly yelled. "Quick, the white one! The WHITE one! Plug it in and unplug the other one!"

Lister frantically found the one she was talking about. It took him three tries to get the power cord out and plug this one in. He searched frantically over the wall to find where this cable attached.

"Data cable," Holly snapped. "Plug it in below the monitor! Hurry!"

"Have I just killed him?" Lister asked miserably as he plugged the unit in.

"There may have been enough residual power in the unit…" Holly's voice trailed off. She was obviously looking at something Lister couldn't see.

Lister began to pace, taking off his hat and tearing at his hair every few feet, glancing back at Holly from time to time. How could he have been so stupid? If he had just done as he was asked and recharged the unit sooner…it was so _important _to Rimmer. It was his life! And for that matter, how come Rimmer hadn't reminded him? He paced faster.

"Ah," Holly said at length.

Lister stopped. "Ah?" he asked. "Is that a good ah or a bad ah?"

Holly didn't answer. She was still clearly working on something. Then she disappeared.

"Holly!" Lister snapped frantically. "Is that a good ah or a bad ah? Is he going to be ok or not?!"

"Don't bust a gut, Listy," Rimmer said, face appearing on Holly's screen.

"Rimmer!" Lister exclaimed, tears of relief pricking in his eyes. "You ok?"

"Yes I am, no thanks to you," Rimmer snapped. "You're all thumbs, you know that?"

"It was an honest mistake, man," Lister said, feeling more confident now that it was clear that Rimmer wasn't dead. "And how come you never told me you needed charging?"

"I didn't know," Rimmer said. "No one ever told _me,_ although I'm given to believe _you _had a bit of a reminder."

Lister sagged. There was no putting off the blame for this one. "Yeah," he said. "I screwed up."

"You certainly did!" Rimmer agreed. "And don't think I'm going to let you forget it!"

"Smeghead," Lister said automatically. "What happened to Holly?"

"I'm still here," Holly said, appearing beside Rimmer. "I'm just doing a bit of partitioning."

"You two can coexist like that?" Lister asked.

"As far as system resources, yeah," Holly said. "But whether I can stand to share _my _terminals with him? Let's just say you need to get to work fixing that projector."

Rimmer gave Holly a glare, but he didn't really look upset. "Well, later, Listy, I'm off to explore my new home," he said cheerfully, and disappeared.

"Oh dear," Holly said, "No, Arnold! Don't touch that!" she disappeared just as the room lights flickered.

"I hope Rimmer doesn't get control of the ship," Lister muttered, sinking down into the lower bunk with the projector unit. "One fixed projector, comin' right up!" He got back up almost immediately and began to pace. He was still trying to work through the residual adrenaline. It had been irresponsible to a horrible degree. He had told Kryten he would take care of charging the projector, and he had forgotten. And he'd nearly killed Rimmer. What he didn't understand is why Rimmer seemed to _chipper _about it. Maybe he was just too angry to form words. But Lister didn't think so. Well, he was sure to figure it out eventually.

He sat back down on the bunk, and spent the remainder of the day tinkering with the projector. Or more accurately, what was _left _of the projector. It was very badly fried, full of fused circuits. Just the thing to fill an afternoon. Lister was never so happy as when he had a mechanical object of fix. Except, of course, when he a curry in one hand, a lager in the other, and a pretty woman in his lap.

When Lister went to see Wallace the next day, the doctor seemed angry. Barely civil at the best of times, he was unbearable angry. The third time he poked Lister's healing incision hard enough to hurt, he decided he'd had enough. "What the smeg is your _problem_, man?"

"Nothing," Wallace snapped, poking again.

"Quit it!" Lister exclaimed, sucking in his stomach to get it out of range, trying to ignore the pain this caused his ribs. "Clearly it's not nothing, and you're hurting me, so spill!"

Wallace swept a hand around the room. "Do you notice anything _different _about this room, Lister?"

Lister looked around, confused. It still looked like the same medical unit to him. "Uh, no?" he said tentatively.

Wallace stormed around, grabbing things at random and shaking them at Lister. "_This _is now where it belongs and _this _is in its proper place and _this _has been put away! Lister, this place is a pig sty! This whole ship is! Don't you people ever clean?"

"Not if we can help it," Lister said, scratching his head. "What's the problem, man? You don't like the mess, so you cleaned it up. Problem solved, right?"

"No, problem _not _solved!" Wallace snapped. "I'm a doctor, not a sanitation mechnoid. There _is_ in fact a sanitation mechanoid, and I've set him to cleaning – "

"You what?" Lister asked. That explained why he hadn't seen Kryten around much the last few days.

"But there's only so much one mechanoid can do," Wallace continued as if he hadn't been interrupted. "I can nominally understand why the Cat, who's technically not part of the crew, doesn't do anything, but what about you and Rimmer?"

"We do stuff," Lister said, although he didn't think that eating vindaloo and watching old movies was exactly what the hologram had in mind.

"I'd be happy to pitch in if I had a body," Rimmer said cheerfully, popping up on a nearby screen.

"What the HELL?" Wallace demanded, jumping backwards. "Rimmer! What have you done to Holly?"

"He hasn't done anything to me," Holly protested, her image appearing next to Rimmer's.

"Yeah. We had a little…accident with the projector earlier," Lister said. Hopefully nobody would ask him whose fault exactly that had been.

"So you put him in the ship's mainframe? Unacceptable!" Wallace snapped.

"Also, not your call," Lister pointed out defiantly.

"Oh, _really_?" Wallace said, raising an eyebrow smugly. "In case you've forgotten, I'm an officer. I can't even tell you how much I outrank everyone on this ship. And I think it's about time I reminded you."

"Smeg! It's Queeg all over again!" Lister exclaimed. "No way are you gonna make me clean!"

"I allow that you're still recovering," Wallace said. "But you would be wise not to test me, Lister. It's bad enough that you don't follow my orders as your doctor and risk your health. But I will _not _tolerate you disobeying my orders as your superior officer."

"Yeah, whatever," Lister said, getting off the table. "Well, exam's over. Places to go, things to do!" he said briskly.

"Such as?" Wallace asked.

"I'm fixin' the projector so we can get Rimmer out of Holly," Lister said.

"Oh," Wallace said, appearing somewhat mollified. "Well…carry on with that, then."

Lister beat a hasty retreat to his quarters. "Hol, is Wallace really trying to make Kryten clean the whole ship?"

"Yeah, 'fraid so," she said, appearing on the monitor. "He's covered nearly two decks in the last two days alone."

"That's not right," Lister complained.

"I don't see why not," Rimmer said, appearing next to Holly. "He's a _sanitation _mechanoid, after all. He was made to clean! He loves it!"

Lister knew this to be true, actually. It was just that he would feel better if Kryten wanted to clean, if he did it on his own. He had always felt uncomfortable with the idea of ordering him around. Rimmer, of course, didn't share that feeling.

"I'll go check on 'im," Holly offered, and disappeared.

Lister studied Rimmer. "You seem chipper for someone without a body," he said. "What's the deal, man?"

"Well…" Rimmer glanced behind him as if he would be able to see Holly coming. "It's not so bad here, actually," Rimmer said. "There's an amazing database at my fingertips…ah, as it were. And I could spend months exploring the inner mechanics of the various parts of the ship. I mean to say…I would understand if you're not able to fix that projector."

"Oh, I think I can – " Lister caught a flash of dismay in Rimmer's face, and he squelched what he was about to say. Rimmer was happier in the computer than he had been in the projector. Ok. Lister got it. And seeing as _he _had been responsible for nearly toasting Rimmer yesterday, he felt like maybe he owed him one. He jabbed the screwdriver he was holding into the projector. "On the other hand, I think it's going to take a while. Maybe a long while."

Rimmer grinned. "You're still recovering, so don't work too hard. I'm off to Holly's library database. Later, Listy." His image faded out.

"Sorry, Hol," Lister muttered, randomly unscrewing a piece of the projector. He knew she was annoyed by Rimmer's presence. And it was scary to contemplate Rimmer in control of any of Red Dwarf's systems. But Lister couldn't justify sticking him back into the projector until he had to. He spent the next hour pretending to fix the projector and trying to think of something that would make everybody happy.

"What's happening?" Cat wailed, suddenly flinging himself into the room, startling Lister so badly he dropped what was left of the projector.

"What the smeg, man?" Lister demanded.

Cat looked genuinely upset, which didn't happen much unless he got a stain or a tangle. "The food dispensers aren't working!" he wailed.

"They what?" This _was _Queeg all over again. Lister practically ran out of his room and to the nearest vending machine. "Uh, chicken soup," he said, naming the first food that came to mind.

A soup materialized. Lister shrugged, took the cup, and took a sip. "Chicken soup."

"What? Let me see!" Cat grabbed it and drank the whole thing. "Fish!" he commanded the machine.

"You have run out of credits," the machine informed him.

"SEE?" Cat exclaimed, pointing at it and looking accusingly at Lister.

"Huh. Works for me and not for you?" Lister asked.

"See, this is basically your fault, Dave," Holly said, appearing on a screen behind them.

"My what? What's going on, Hol?" Lister asked.

"Well, after that little scene this morning, Wallace decided there was going to be a little order. And since he's the ranking officer, I _have _to obey his orders. I'm sorry."

"When I was the ranking officer, you never listened to _me,_" Rimmer put in, appearing next to her and pushing her image over.

"You're not an officer, you're a technician," Holly told him. "You lot don't give me orders so much as…suggestions, sort of."

"What did he tell you to do?" Lister asked with a growing feeling of dread.

"Well, for starters you and Cat are going to have to work for your food. Yes, like Queeg," she said, heading him off before he could say anything. "Only this time it's for real."

"But I still have credit," Lister said, gesturing at the vending machine.

"Yeah, because you're working on that projector," Holly said. "And you're recovering. He told me to give you a few days' grace period before cuttin' you off."

"What about _meeeee_?" Cat said plaintively.

"You're supposed to report to deck 258 for cleaning duty," Holly told him.

"No _way_. _No WAY_," Cat said. "I'll catch my own food!" He stormed off.

"At least I can't be tortured this time," Rimmer said smugly.

"Hey, now, everything Queeg did to you was strictly regulation!" Holly protested. "And you really _could _use more exercise!"

"At the moment?" Rimmer asked, arching an eyebrow.

"Guys, guys!" Lister held up a hand. "Holly, isn't there anything you can do? I'm allergic to being ordered around by superior officers!"

"That explains a lot," Rimmer said.

"What? You were _never _superior," Lister told him.

"I was too! I outranked you, and I still do!" Rimmer flared.

"Yeah, yeah," Lister said dismissively. "Holly?" he asked again.

"I really don't see anything I can do," Holly said.

"You really have to obey his commands?" Lister asked.

"Yeah, 'fraid so," Holly said. "It's in my basic programming. Have to obey any crew member, but _really _have to obey an officer. It keeps the ship running, it does."

"You could always deactivate him and give me my light bee back!" Rimmer snapped at her.

"Can't do that," she said. "Rules, remember? Ethics, morals. Dave, I think your best bet is to develop a skill. At least then you won't have to scrub floors."

"Develop a skill? You're doomed, Listy!" Rimmer chortled.

"Smeg off," Lister told him, and went back to fixing the projector with renewed enthusiasm.


	5. Chapter 5: Rimmercide

**Chapter 5: Rimmercide**

In the end, he wasn't able to fix the projector, even though he was actually trying now. He tried for two days before asking Kryten to help, but it was broken beyond repair. He tried to bluff Wallace, but it didn't work. He was busted the day he went to get his stitches out.

"So, how's the projector coming?" Wallace asked, removing a stitch.

Lister flinched. "It's…coming along."

"That's not what Kryten told me."

"Kryten? What did Kryten say?" Lister demanded, feeling betrayed. Whose side was he on?

"Oh, he said that you both tried to fix it, and couldn't," Wallace said.

"He did, did he?" Lister asked. He would have to have words with his supposed 'friend.'

"Well, the important thing is that you tried," Wallace said. "And you do seem to have some mechanical skills."

"I fixed soup dispensers for months," Lister said. "And I've fixed Kryten. I guess it's a sort of hobby."

"It seems particularly useful given the circumstances," Wallace said.

"So you're not going to make me scrub floors?" Lister asked, hopes rising.

Wallace laughed. "Oh, no! I think those are coming along nicely. No, I think you might enjoy fixing some scutters."

"What's wrong with the scutters?" Lister asked. "They seem fine to me."

"Certainly, the two still working," Wallace said.

"We're supposed to have more than two?" Lister asked blankly. Although now that he thought of it, he did seem to recall having a lot around before the radiation leak.

"There are supposed to be thousands," Wallace informed him. "But in the last three million years, apparently things have happened. If they were repaired, then that would free up the sanitation mechanoid for slightly more complicated duties."

"Hey, yeah!" Lister said. This idea was actually growing on him. He could tinker with scutters, help Kryten, _and _get out of floor-scrubbing duty. "Where are the broken scutters stored, Hol?" he asked, excited to get started.

"That's the spirit!" Wallace said cheerfully.

Lister ignored him and headed off to find the scutters, with Holly directing him. In truth, he didn't really care at all to be ordered around. He had in fact become accustomed to doing what he wanted, when he wanted. But this sounded like fun, and as long as his fun coincided with doing what Wallace wanted, he was happy enough to oblige.

Rimmer, on the other hand, didn't seem very understanding. "So that's it, then," he griped, keeping pace with Lister by appearing sequentially on the monitors he passed. "He says to do something, and you just hop to? You were never over-anxious to follow _my _orders!"

"Aw, it's not like that, Rimmer," Lister said. "I'm not really following his orders. It's more like…more like he has a point about the scutters, I suppose. And if more of them are fixed, Kryten will be free to…do…whatever it is Kryten does." Lister had wound down somewhat. As far as he knew cleaning _was _what Kryten did for fun.

"Yes, heaven forbid he's too busy to iron your socks," Rimmer said, rolling his eyes.

"Smeg off," Lister told him. "Go bother Holly or somethin'."

"Oh, he is. _He is._" Holly told him dolefully.

Lister just grinned and sat down to fix some serious scutter.

Things went well, for the better part of a day. Lister managed to fix two scutters, giving the two already operational friends that they had clearly missed. The four went off happily chirping to each other to clean something, or do whatever else it was that Wallace wanted.

The problem came from Rimmer, as problems so often did. Wallace had come to check up on Lister's progress, an act he found completely annoying. Micromanager. Lister was doing fine. He almost had a third one repaired. But Wallace came in, clearly set on telling him how to do what he was doing.

Or he would have, if at that moment the ship hadn't given a great shudder and the alarms hadn't started going off.

"What's going on?" Wallace screeched.

"Oh dear," Holly's voice said, although she didn't appear on a screen. "Hang on…"

"I didn't know that was what that setting was _for_," Rimmer's voice said petulantly.

"What the smeg did you _do_, Rimmer?" Lister demanded, covering his ears from the siren.

"Nothing, nothing!" Rimmer snapped, appearing on a screen looking guilty.

After a moment the siren stopped and Holly appeared next to Rimmer, giving him a truly hateful look. "That's fixed that then," she said. "No thanks to Mister Happy Circuits here."

"It wasn't my fault," Rimmer said automatically, although he was clearly fooling no one.

"What. Happened." Wallace demanded coldly.

"Just a…glitch," Holly said. "Sort of. There's a lot to having two AIs running at once."

"I'm hardly an AI," Rimmer protested.

"You've got that right," Lister said.

Rimmer glared at him, suspicious of the insult without actually getting what it was. "Anyway," he said eventually, "I didn't mean to touch anything."

"It's hard to block him from all the vital systems," Holly said. "And also, having both of us in here does seem a little hard on the ship's programs." Her point was underscored when the lights dimmed for a split second.

"Ok, that's it," Wallace said. "I want him out of there. Now."

"You what?" Lister asked. Although he couldn't say he was totally surprised. The trouble was, what to do with Rimmer if they did move him?

"His presence is _clearly_ jeopardizing the safety of this ship and her crew," Wallace said as the lights flickered again.

"Where else could I go?" Rimmer demanded.

"Nowhere?" Wallace suggested. "Holly, terminate him."

"What?" Rimmer squeaked.

"Wait a minute!" Lister exclaimed. "You can't do that! You can't kill a hologram, remember? It's murder!"

"What he said," Rimmer seconded weakly.

"Ah, but he's _not _a hologram, is he?" Wallace asked smugly. "He's a computer program. And as such, it is certainly my right to terminate it. Or ask Holly to. Or order Holly to."

"You can't be asking that!" Holly said, horrified.

"And you have to obey," Wallace told her. "Now, terminate Rimmer's program."

"Wait a minute," Lister protested.

Holly fidgeted, glancing between Wallace and Rimmer. "Let me get this straight: you're ordering me to kill Arnold?" she asked eventually.

Wallace rolled his eyes. "Yes, dammit! And nothing tricky! You are to kill Second Technician Arnold Judas Rimmer, currently residing as a computer program! Now _do _it!"

"Don't do it!" Rimmer and Lister yelled in unison.

"Sorry, Dave," Holly said. "He outranks you. Sorry, Arnold." With that a big red X appeared over Rimmer's face. He screamed and disappeared. "Arnold Rimmer is now dead," Holly said.

"Rimmer!" Lister ran to the monitor and slammed a fist against it. "Holly, how _could _you?"

"Well, to be honest there really wasn't room in here for both of us," Holly told him. "Doctor Wallace was right that it was causing problems. So: we solved the problem."

"Damn you!" Lister said. "Damn you both!" he yelled at Wallace. Then he got out of there. He couldn't believe this was happening. He had known that Rimmer's proximity to Holly had to annoy her, but to just…_kill _him like that? Did she hate him that much? And what about Lister? Wasn't Rimmer supposed to stay around to keep him sane? How could she? Orders or not, she could have found another way. Or stalled. Something. Anything.

He had slowed to a trudge by the time he reached his quarters. He didn't bother to turn on the lights, instead sitting disconsolately at the table in the dark, keeping his back carefully to Rimmer's bunk. He couldn't deal with this. He couldn't really be gone.

He had been sitting in the dark for hours when Cat came in uninvited. He sat down across from Lister, eyes and teeth gleaming in the dim glow of the night lights. "Hey, bud," he said. "What's wrong?"

"You haven't heard," Lister said flatly.

"Heart what?" Cat asked. "New work detail? _More _work detail? That would depress _me_."

"Holly killed Rimmer," Lister said.

"What now?" Cat asked. "When? Why? Huh?"

"Wallace told her to, and she did it," Lister said dully. "And now…he's gone."

"You say that as if it were a bad thing," Cat said.

"Cat!" Lister said, horrified.

"I'm just trying to cheer you up," Cat said, offended.

"Well, you're failing miserably," Lister told him. "Now go away."

"You want to sit here in the dark all alone and feel sorry for yourself?" Cat asked in disgust.

"Yeah," Lister told him.

"Fine." Cat got up and left.

Lister watched him go, and then went back to staring at the darkness. In truth, he didn't know why he felt so depressed. Sure, he and Rimmer were mates of sorts. And they had been bunkmates for years. He was just…used to having the other man around. The room felt empty without him. And then there was Holly's attitude. She hadn't seemed at all sorry. She had in fact seemed _glad _to be rid of him. And also, of course, was the little voice telling him this was all because of him. All because for once in his life Rimmer did the honorable thing. And this was the thanks he got. Even Rimmer hadn't deserved this.

After that, Lister went on autopilot. He was still too angry at Holly to speak to her. She occasionally appeared on a monitor and tried to get his attention, but he just switched the monitors off or walked away. He flatly refused to talk to Wallace or do any of the things he ordered him to do. The broken scutters remained in disrepair, even after Wallace had Kryten bring an armload into Lister's quarters. As a result, Wallace cut off his credit, denying him food. He hadn't seen Cat in days. He was either being worked to death, in a snit, or off foraging for his own food on the lower decks. Lister hoped it was the latter, and he wished Cat well, even if he didn't seem at all broken up about Rimmer.

On the fifth day, Wallace put him under house arrest for insubordination. At least now he allowed him a bowl of rice a day, after Holly interceded and pointed out that prisoners _couldn't_ work and must therefore be allowed to eat. Lister didn't like rice unless it was covered in curry, though, so mostly he ignored it.

He was sitting at the table actively ignoring his dinner when the monitor spoke to him. "Wallace isn't around, right?" it hissed. It didn't sound like Holly. In fact, it sounded like…

"Rimmer!" Lister exclaimed disbelievingly. "Is that you?"

Rimmer's face appeared peaking out from the corner of the monitor. "Wallace isn't around?" he asked again.

"No, no!" Lister exclaimed, coming to stand in front of the monitor with such a wide grin it threatened to split his face. He couldn't believe this. "Rimmer! You're really alive?"

"I haven't been alive for three million years, you git," Rimmer told him. "That's the whole point."

"Whole point of…" Lister froze as he suddenly realized exactly what it was Holly had said she did. _Killed _him. Made him _dead. _ "Oh…"

"Yeah," Holly said, appearing on the other side of the screen. "I've been trying to tell you, Dave, but you keep ignoring me. And of course we don't want Wallace to catch on."

"NO, we do not," Rimmer said with feeling. "He may have been stupid enough to fall for it once, but you can be certain the wording will be more…precise next time."

"You're ok," Lister said again. "Hol, I – "

"I know, you don't have to say it," she said. "Although it's nice to know you think so highly of me."

"Sorry," Lister muttered.

"I really can't stay," Rimmer said, "or I might get caught. So I'll be brief. Wallace has to go."

"Agreed," Lister said. "But how?"

"That's the problem," Holly said. "Unless he does something to jeopardize the crew, I have to follow his orders."

"What about starving Lister?" Rimmer asked.

Lister looked at the rice. "You knew about that? What, have you been spying on me?"

"Yes," Rimmer said. "But as I said, I couldn't reveal myself, because if Wallace finds me, I really _am _going to be terminated."

"So you just let me think you were dead, then?" Lister asked.

"Well…" Rimmer said. "Yes, technically. But it couldn't be helped."

"Why're you revealing yourself now, then?" Lister asked resentfully. Rimmer could have found a way to contact him.

"I've been trying to tell you for days," Holly said. "But you wouldn't listen to me. So I convinced Arnold to talk to you."

"Yes, she can be very convincing," Rimmer said, "when she has the ability to cause me to cease to exist."

Lister sighed. "Ok, fine. So what about it, Hol? What constitutes a danger to the crew?"

"Well, your punishment doesn't," Holly said, "because it's justified, at least in the rule books."

"So I'll just go pull his disk from the hologram simulator," Lister said.

"He's already thought of that," Holly said. "He's locked the doors. He's ordered me to keep you out as well, and a bunch of other things that make it _very _difficult for me to figure out how to give you access."

"Thorough bastard, isn't he?" Lister asked. "Hey, Hol, how come you're willing to help us now, when you weren't before?"

"Well, for one thing, I'm technically not helping you," Holly said. "As I'm still bound by the same programming as before. But to answer your question, I don't like Wallace. I don't think he's good for you, Dave."

"I don't think he's particularly good for _me_, either," Rimmer pointed out.

"But my primary concern is for the living crew," Holly said. "Which is Dave."

"And Cat," Lister said.

"Not crew," Holly said. "And also, he keeps spraying god-knows-what on my monitors and declaring them 'his.'"

"Can we please get back to the matter at hand?" Rimmer asked. "Namely, operation: Terminate Git."

Lister chuckled. "Yeah, Operation TG. Any ideas, Hol?"

"Maybe one or two," she said, "but they need work."

"Care to share?" Lister asked.

"Not 'til I iron out the details," Holly said. "This probably goes without saying," she added, "but you shouldn't mention this to either Kryten or Cat."

"Why not?" Lister asked.

"Because Kryten might feel obligated to tell a superior officer, particularly if he's asked."

"Nah, Kryten wouldn't…" Lister stopped, thinking of the broken hologram projector.

"And Cat couldn't keep a secret if his life depended on it."

"As mine does," Rimmer said.

"So no telling them about Rimmer," Lister agreed reluctantly. "So what'm I supposed to do?"

"I'll just let you two work it out amongst yourselves," Rimmer said. "I really need to disappear back into the system."

Lister looked around. "Why? Do you think he's spying on us?"

"It's not that," Holly said. "It's the thing that happens when Rimmer and I are both up at once. If the systems start going haywire, Wallace is bound to suspect."

"So, see you, Listy," Rimmer said.

"Hey, smeghead?" Lister asked before Rimmer could disappear.

"You don't honestly expect me to _answer _to that, do you?" Rimmer asked.

"Yes, but that's not the point," Lister said. He wasn't even sure why he was saying anything.

"And what _is _the point?" Rimmer asked impatiently. "You should get to it, because I need to go hide again before the Smegger from Hell finds me."

"The point is…I'm glad you're ok," Lister said, surprised both at the depth of his sentiment and his willingness to express it.

Rimmer was apparently startled as well. "Uh, well," he stammered, and then disappeared.

Holly smirked. "Maybe next time you'll trust me a little more. Haven't I taken care of you up 'til now? Of all of you?"

"Yeah, Hol," Lister told her, duly chastised. "Uh…I'm sorry."

She sighed. "It's ok, Dave. I don't stay mad. And I know you were worried about him, although frankly I don't see _why._"

Neither did Lister. But he had said what he'd said, and there was no point in trying to take it back. "So now what, Hol?" he asked.

"Just keep on," Holly said. "You probably want to go back to work so you're not locked in your room."

"Yeah," Lister agreed.

"Later, bro," Holly said. "I have things to work out." She disappeared.

Lister sat back down. Suddenly starving, he grabbed the rice and ate it, cold, with his fingers. Rimmer was ok! And Lister really owed Holly an apology. But he was sure she understood. He had been angry. But if he'd just listened to her, he would have known much sooner about Rimmer. There was probably a lesson in that somewhere, but if so Lister chose to ignore it.

When Wallace came in the next day, Lister made a show of being reluctant, but hungry, and ultimately agreeing to resume work on the scutters in return for food. Wallace seemed happy, and immediately let him out of his quarters. Lister spent about an hour enjoying his freedom, and then went to at least make a show of fixing the scutters.

Things were not all tickity-boo, however. Over the course of the next few days, Lister realized that Wallace was clearly still punishing him. Despite the fact that he fixed scutters for all he was worth, the only food allotment he seemed to be allowed was some sort of rice-based gruel. When he asked Holly about it, she told him there was nothing she could do but follow his orders. The gruel was nutritionally-balanced, and therefore didn't constitute unreasonable treatment of the crew.

"If I have to eat any more of this, I'm throwing myself out the nearest airlock," Lister said, staring morosely at a bowl of gruel.

Rimmer appeared, much as he had before, first peeking out and then appearing, Holly beside him. "Enjoying our gruel, Listy?" he asked, smirking.

In response, Lister flicked a spoonful of it against the monitor, hitting the spot where Rimmer's eye was.

"Hey, now!" Holly protested.

"How's the plotting, guys?" Lister asked.

"Well, actually," Rimmer said, and Holly rolled her eyes.

"Oh yeah?" Lister asked, feeling his spirits rise slightly.

"We have a plan, but we'll be lucky if we don't crash into the nearest sun implementing it," Holly said.

"Hey, now!" Rimmer protested.

"So what _is _the plan?"

"It involves me taking over Red Dwarf," Rimmer told him.

"You know, I've had nightmares that started in just this way," Lister told him. "Holly, you _can't _be serious!"

"I can't think of anything else," she said. "He's not under any obligation to follow orders. So if he can get control of the hologram simulation unit…"

"He can shut off Wallace!" Lister exclaimed. "Brilliant!"

"Well, yes, but there is one _teensy _flaw so far," Rimmer admitted.

"Yeah, he's a total idiot," Holly said. "If I turned over even that much control, he would probably blow up the ship."

"I wouldn't go that far," Rimmer said, offended.

"We're starting small," Holly said. "On the vending machine outside your quarters.

"Oh yeah?" Lister asked, torn between happiness at the thought of eating something besides gruel and fear of what the alternative would be, if chosen by Rimmer.

"It's going well," Rimmer said. "Ah, but don't actually use that one, ok? It might not be…pleasant."

Well, so much for not eating gruel.

"So basically we're waiting for Rimmer to learn how to control the hologram simulation unit?" Lister asked. "I'll be waiting years then."

"Oh, ha, ha," Rimmer said icily. "Well, back to work." He disappeared.

"I need to go keep Arnold from blowing us up. Or worse, giving us away." She disappeared as well.

Lister went back to his gruel with a sigh.

He finally saw Kryten later that afternoon. He hadn't seen much of the mechanoid the last few days, as he had apparently been tasked with cleaning the entire ship. The hell of it was, he seemed happy to do it. He hummed into the room where Lister was working, wearing a little frilly apron and carrying a feather-duster. "Good afternoon, Mister Lister," he said.

"Kryten," Lister returned.

"I see that you've given in to the inevitable, sir," Kryten said, gesturing at the pieces of scutter scattered around the floor.

"Yeah," Lister said. "Man cannot live by rice alone. Or even with company. And speakin' of company, where's Cat?"

"Ah, I believe he's given in to the inevitable as well, Sir," Kryten said. "The last time I saw him was mopping the Starbug bay."

"What? The whole bay?" Lister asked.

"Yes, sir, but it's not so bad," Kryten told him.

"Not so bad? Kryten, it'll take him years!"

"Not when he's using a Blue Midget to do it," Kryten told him with a smile.

"This I gotta see," Lister said. He put down the scutter head he was holding and got up. "You coming, Kryten?"

"No, Sir, I've already seen it. And besides, these consoles won't dust themselves."

"Doesn't this bother ya?" Lister asked, annoyed. "I mean, you're being made to clean like a – like a…" he stalled out.

"Like a service mechanoid, sir?" Kryten asked. "But sir, that's what I _am_."

"So it really doesn't bother you then?"

"Not really, Mister Lister. I will admit that I have enjoyed a certain degree of…freedom these last few years. But really, I don't mind. And look how _nice _the ship is looking!" He went back to dusting.

Lister gave up. He made his way to the bay and stopped in amazement at the doorway. Kryten was right; Cat really _was _mopping with a spaceship. He moved all the ships against the far wall, and somehow rigged up a HUGE bucket full of soapy water. He had tied something onto each foot of the Midget's legs. He was now dancing around in the ship, doing slides to clean the floor, occasionally picking up a leg and sticking it in the bucket. It was making more of a mess than it was cleaning, but it looked like fun.

Lister stepped out into the bay, carefully to stay safely out of the way. "Cat! Hey, Cat!"

The Midget stopped. Cat's head poked out. "Hey, bud! How's it goin?"

Lister waved. "Permission to come aboard?"

Cat's head disappeared and after a moment the Midget sank down to ground level. Lister clambered in. As soon as he got the door shut, Cat started it up again. Even inside Red Dwarf, with gravity in full-effect, Cat was piloting so smoothly that there was barely any shaking at all.

He sat in the copilot's seat and watched Cat, who seemed to be completely engrossed in what he was doing. "Having fun?" he finally asked.

Cat spared him a glance and flashed his fangs. "If I have to work, I can at least work in _style_!"

"Haven't seen you much lately," Lister said. "What happened to foraging for your own food?"

"There _is _no food," Cat complained. "It's all been locked up or put into the vending machines! It would take more effort to break in to get at it than it does to just do what the nice megalomaniac asks!"

"Look, Cat, I've got something to tell you, but you have to promise not to tell anyone, even Kryten," Lister said. "And especially NOT Wallace."

Cat nodded. "Go ahead."

"Hol, is it safe to talk?" Lister asked.

Holly popped up on a screen. "Well, not with me listening. Gimme just a minute and I'll temporarily black out all the screens." She disappeared.

"What's going on?" Cat asked.

"Stop a second, and I'll tell you," Lister told him.

Cat obligingly stopped mopping. He turned to more fully face Lister. "Ok, I'm listening."

Lister desperately wanted to tell him about Rimmer, but agreed that the idea of Cat keeping a secret was ludicrous. Oh, he would _try._ But he was far too likely to blurt something out at the wrong moment. "We're trying to devise a way of turning off Wallace."

"Yes!" Cat exclaimed. "About time! I don't know how much longer I can hold out. He's thinking of making me wear a uniform! Me! A uniform!" The last came out as a wail.

Lister patted Cat on the shoulder. "Nobody's gonna make you wear a uniform. Or me either. The revolution's coming."

"Why don't you just go switch him off?" Cat asked.

"He's locked the doors, and ordered Holly not to help us," Lister said.

"I don't understand why she's helping him," Cat said in annoyance.

"It's not her fault," Lister said. "She was programmed that way. Although I think the first thing I'm going to do after we get rid of Wallace is undo that bit of her programming. If I can."

"Do we have a plan?"

"Not exactly," Lister said, carefully omitting the fact that Rimmer was part of it, and trying not to think about how unlikely any plan with that individual as a central figure was to work. I'll let you know. So just be ready, ok?"

"Ok," Cat agreed. He looked puzzled, but agreeable.

Lister gave him another pat and then left him to the cleaning.


	6. Chapter 6: The Day of Reckoning

**Chapter 6: The Day of Reckoning **

"The day of reckoning has finally come," Rimmer cheerfully announced three days later, popping up on a screen over Lister's head.

Lister jumped and dropped the spanner he was holding. "Rimmer! Don't sneak up like that!"

"Sneak up? _Sneak up?_ What am I supposed to do, I'm a computer screen!"

"Yeah, _my _screen," Holly complained.

Lister turned to them. "Ok, so the day of reckoning is here. What exactly is the plan, people? I assumed it would just more or less involve turning Wallace off."

"Turns out he has an unbelievable number of safeguards in place," Rimmer said bitterly. "I can't get access."

"I could, if I was allowed to," Holly said. "Safeguards, my microprocessors."

"Ok, so it's a bit difficult to hack into a system that complicated without frying it!" Rimmer said testily. "So sue me if I'm not _used _to being a computer program!"

"So we're no closer than we were when we started?" Lister asked glumly.

"No, we do have a plan," Holly said. "All it requires is for Arnold to override the doors and get you access to the room. From there you can manually pull out the disk."

"Why can't I just go in with a cutting torch?" Lister asked. "For the doors, I mean," he hastily added when he saw Rimmer's horrified face.

"Because he's _boobytrapped _the doors," Rimmer said. "This man is insane!"

"Just like Cat said," Lister said.

"Did I hear my – " Cat started, arriving in the room unannounced. Then, "Hey! Goalpost Head!" He stared at the screen.

"Smeg!" Rimmer exclaimed.

"Oh, calm down," Lister told him. "If today's the day, it's about time the troops knew the plan."

"He's alive?" Cat asked, staring incredulously at Rimmer.

"Yes, I'm sure you're thrilled to see me," Rimmer said.

"You knew this, and you didn't tell me?" Cat asked Lister.

"Well…" Lister said hesitantly. "We had to hatch a plan…"

"Mister Rimmer!" a new voice exclaimed, and Kryten appeared in the doorway. "You're alive!"

"Yes, I'm fine," Rimmer said tiredly. "Now, back to the plan – "

And then, Wallace walked in.

Rimmer immediately disappeared, but it was too late.

Wallace's eyes widened. "Holly! Was that Rimmer?"

"What? Where?" she asked, trying to bluff.

"You know perfectly well," Wallace said. "And I distinctly recall ordering you to terminate him!"

Lister felt a sinking feeling of déjà vu. He tried desperately to think of a way to keep Wallace from ordering Holly to deactivate Rimmer. For real, this time.

"Actually, you told me to kill him," Holly said smugly. "And as he's already dead – "

"You _tricked _me!" Wallace screeched. "Holly, I order you to – "

Lister took a flying leap and hit Wallace with an elbow to the face, knocking him back into a pile of broken scutters.

Wallace gave an incoherent bellow of rage and launched himself at Lister, who was too surprised to get out of the way. He crashed backwards into a chair, clutching his nose where Wallace had hit him, feeling blood well between his fingers. At this rate, his broken nose would never heal. He felt the whole ship give a great shudder. Or maybe it was just the blow to his head.

"Holly! Destroy Rimmer! NOW!" Wallace bellowed.

Rimmer's face appeared on the screen. "No can do, Meladdo," he said cheerfully.

"What?" Wallace demanded.

"It seems I'm in charge now," Rimmer said.

"Just don't touch anything," Holly said.

"Holly, I order you to resume command of the ship!" Wallace told her.

"Sorry, no can do," she said. "Not unless he gives command back voluntarily."

"Fine," Wallace said. He went to Lister, who was struggling to rise, and grabbed his throat with both hands. "Then Rimmer, it may be in your best interests to return control to Holly, or I'll break his freaking neck!"

Rimmer stared. Lister tried unsuccessfully to draw a breath, fingers clawing at Wallace's hands. Cat, unnoticed, launched himself at Wallace's back. He hit him in a flying tackle, wrapping both arms and both legs around him and sinking his teeth into the back of his neck. Wallace gave a bellow of rage and smashed Cat against a wall. But he let go of Lister.

Kryten grabbed Lister and pulled him to his feet. That was all the encouragement Lister needed; he started running. Behind him Kryten grabbed Cat as well, and the three of them ran for all they were worth. A glance backwards revealed that Wallace was right behind them. "Rimmer, do something!" Lister panted. "He's too much for us!"

"Just be careful of his light bee!" Rimmer exclaimed. "Or I should say, _my _light bee."

"He just tried to kill me, and all you can think of is the light bee?" Lister gasped incredulously.

"Well, I do have a vested interest in – "

"Just get the smegging doors to the holographic simulation room open!" Lister shouted.

"I'm _trying_!" Rimmer exclaimed. The ship gave another shudder.

"Not that one!" Holly exclaimed. Alarms started going off.

"Try not to get us all killed, Mister Rimmer," Kryten said.

"Duly noted, Kryten!" Rimmer snapped. "I'm certainly glad I had you to tell me that! Otherwise I might never have – oh SMEG!"

All the vending machines started shooting chicken soup. Cat slipped in a puddle of it and would have gone down if Lister hadn't managed to grab his arm. They arrived at a lift, which didn't respond. "RIMMER!"

"I don't know! I don't KNOW!" Rimmer screamed. "Just take the stairs!"

"You want us to take the STAIRS?" Cat exclaimed.

"We have stairs?" Lister said at the same time.

"It's only two levels up," Holly said. "You can do it!"

"Hol, does this count as jeopardizing the lives of the crew?" Lister demanded.

"Yeah," she said. "I am now under no obligation to help Wallace in any way."

"So Rimmer, smegging give her back control of the ship!" They had reached the stairs, Wallace right behind them.

"I DON'T REMEMBER HOW!"

"Smegging useless!" Lister shot. In response, the lights went out, causing him to trip on a step and fall. "RIMMER!" he bellowed.

The emergency lighting came on, bathing them in a dull red. Lister turned to see Wallace right on top of him. Kryten, however, launched himself at the hologram, knocking both of them down the stairs. There was a series of crashes, clanks, and thuds as they bounced down the steps and out of sight. "I'm alright sir, go on!" Kryten called faintly.

Lister and Cat ran on, reaching the top of the stairs just as the lights came back on. "Well, that's something," Rimmer said.

"The _doors_, Rimmer!" Lister yelled. "Have you opened the doors?" He was nearly there.

"Not yet; don't touch them!" Rimmer said urgently. "They're wired to send a thousand volts of electricity through anyone who touches them."

"Smegging hell!" Lister exclaimed, stopping in the corridor. "He really didn't want to be turned off, did he?"

"He wired it up to its own power supply, too," Holly said. "So our only hope is to open the doors, which you will then _not touch _as you go through."

"And how's that coming, Hol?" Lister asked as Wallace appeared at the end of the hall, Kryten clinging to his leg like a big, misshapen anchor.

"Don't rush me!" Rimmer exclaimed.

"Oh, take your time!" Lister said sarcastically. He grabbed Cat's arm and pulled him into the nearest room, looking for something to buy them time. It was some sort of break room. There were tables, a few chairs…a smegging refrigerator. No weapons in sight.

Wallace burst in. He had apparently shaken off his Kryten-shaped anchor. And he looked seriously smegged-off. "You are all DEAD!" he roared, launching himself at Lister.

Lister twisted away, trying to protect his healing ribs, which was the doctor's apparent target. He was only partially successful, and fell back against a table with an exhalation of pain. Through a red haze of pain, he saw Cat go for Wallace again, and end up much as before when Wallace slammed him back against a wall with such force that he hit it halfway up with a resounding thud, then slid down to the floor in a heap.

Wallace turned back to Lister, who hadn't managed to get up yet. Kryten came in then, looking slightly dinged but in one piece. He stepped between Lister and Wallace, who unceremoniously threw him into the nearest soup dispenser where he stuck with an electronic crackle.

"HOLLY! RIMMER!" Lister yelled, still trying to get up.

The lights went out then, plunging the room into total darkness. Lister rolled frantically away from Wallace's last known position, hoping holograms couldn't see in the dark. He ended up against a wall, underneath the table he had been thrown against. He stayed there, trying to quiet his breathing. The room had gone silent when the lights had gone out. He could hear something mechanical, possibly Kryten, and he could hear harsh breathing which was probably Cat. He heard something small and metallic hit the floor. He stayed still, wishing he could see, wishing he knew what was going on.

After a minute or two that felt like a year, the lights came back on. Lister peeked out from under the table. Kryten, completely covered in chicken soup, was picking himself up. Cat was sitting against the wall, rubbing the back of his head. And Rimmer was standing in the middle of the room, looking smug. "Rimmer!" Lister exclaimed, trying to struggle out from under the table.

Rimmer extended a hand to help him. "And once again old Arnold saves the day, eh old chap?" he said with a grin.

"Smeghead!" Lister said, but without much malice. "You could have saved the day a bit earlier, you know!"

"He finally remembered how to return control of the ship to me," Holly said. "So I deactivated Wallace."

"I thought there were safeguards," Lister said.

"Not safeguards so much as complicated programs," Holly said. "Which as a computer with and IQ of 6000, I have no problems navigating."

"Ah," Lister said, glancing at Rimmer.

"Lister, you have no idea how complicated the inner workings of a computer program are!" Rimmer protested. He hoisted Lister to his feet, but didn't immediately let go of his arm. "I did the best I could, given what – "

"What a total loser you are?" Cat asked, struggling to his feet to stand on Rimmer's other side.

"I did just save you, you know," Rimmer said, apparently ignoring all evidence to the contrary. Lister didn't have the energy to point that out. In fact, Lister didn't have the energy for much of anything at the moment. He hurt, and he was exhausted. He was annoyed at Rimmer for taking so long, and yet perversely he was disconcertingly happy to have Rimmer back.

"Is everyone alright?" Kryten asked, finally managing to get up.

"Fine," Lister said, dabbing blood from his nose with his free hand and trying to ignore the aching in his ribs.

"I'll survive," Cat muttered, fingering the back of his head.

"Never better!" Rimmer exclaimed, throwing his arms around Lister and Cat happily. "I'm _back_!"

Lister couldn't help but grin. Rimmer was back. And despite his nearly total failure, he had _tried _to help.

"Why don't I whip us up something to celebrate?" Kryten said, picking noodles out of his groinal socket. "Maybe something fancy to suit the occasion."

Tired as Lister was, the idea of eating something – anything – that wasn't gruel was so appealing that he laughed out loud.

"I'll load the menus," Holly said.

"Food! Excellent!" Rimmer exclaimed. "It's the thing I've missed most about being a computer program!"

Arm in arm, Lister, Rimmer, and Cat followed Kryten towards the kitchen, visions of food dancing in their heads.


End file.
